‘All right by me, but I have to see her, this woman.’
‘Yes, yes, you’ll see her. You’ll get a good enough glimpse of her,’ replied Monsieur Olive, showing a little humour; ‘you’ll get a good enough glimpse. Anyway, she’s heading for eighty and she’s slightly hunchbacked.’ (With these fabricated details, Monsieur Olive was hoping to discourage Monsieur Devitrolles once and for all, who seemed not to have understood that it was to be a mere marriage of convenience.)
Monsieur Devitrolles’ response was categorical and unexpected:
‘Well, that doesn’t suit me at all! We hardly want an eighty-year-old hunchback, now, do we! Oh no! I’m having none of that!’
‘But I’m telling you, she’s leaving! She’s leaving! She’s leaving! How many times do I have to repeat it!’ Monsieur Olive was shouting now.
‘I’m not having a bar of your hunchback,’ said Monsieur Devitrolles, with finality, and he too was furious now, rapping his cane on the marble tabletop.
My dear professor, unable to take any more, let out a Homeric laugh. I was chuckling behind my newspaper. The scene was taking a turn for the ridiculous.
Other customers were starting to pay attention. Monsieur Olive had lost his patience.
‘You’re nothing but an old fool,’ he shouted.
Monsieur Devitrolles stood up – but not before downing the remains of his Chambéry-fraise aperitif – retrieved his cane and his hat and left, dignified and grumbling.
Monsieur Olive looked at us as if calling us to witness.
‘It’s no laughing matter,’ he said, truly irritated. ‘I’d tracked down a serious contender, nothing compromising, a permanent resident of an old people’s home with an aristocratic name to top it all off, and voilà, we don’t even get to first base. I picked a crazy, just my luck.’
The poor boy dabbed at his brow. Then, having calmed down, it was his turn to laugh.
My professor and I had enjoyed the comedy of this interlude, so symptomatic of the times.
There was a fairly high incidence of marriages of convenience in France. These absurd devices allowed one to evade complications for a certain period. In about 1942, however, these marriages were annulled.
VI
Nice
December 1940
Some French friends sent me an invitation stamped by the prefecture in Nice that cleared the path of difficulties: I immediately obtained the precious safe-conduct pass.
I left Avignon in midwinter, leaving behind me cold, wind and rain. From Marseille, it felt as if I were moving through an enchanted land. The Corniche was golden with mimosas and fields of carnations: everywhere lemon trees, orange trees, olive trees, their branches laden with fruit, stood out against the background of dark green palm trees. An azure-blue sea and sky framed the exotic world spread out before me.
I felt as if I had been transported to a land of fairytales. I was dazzled. I was entering an earthly paradise!
Little did I know that at the same time, I was heading into the darkest period of my life!
A friend of mine from Paris was waiting for me at the railway station in Nice. As she led me to Rue de France, where we boarded an old-fashioned little tram that coughed along with a great metallic clatter, she filled me in on life in Nice. She took me to a small hotel at the beach, in the Sainte-Hélène neighbourhood.
Every window of the hotel, which was surrounded by palm trees and lemon trees, had a view of the sea’s vast horizon.
A few days later, I made contact with some people from Paris who I knew had taken refuge in Nice.
At first, there were the distressing revelations about all that had happened in the capital: the bombing of Auteuil, the Occupation, the mass exodus!
I also heard terrible news about the countries that had been occupied and, once again, I was overcome by heart-rending anxiety for my family.
Information arrived by way of the few foreign newspapers one could still find at the time. Of those, the Zurich weekly Die Weltwoche was enormously popular.
Other news spread by word of mouth, crossing borders, defying censorship and monitoring, reaching us fresh and leaving us breathless with horror. At that time, there was scarcely anything but disastrous news.
I also discovered no end of detail about local life, its possibilities and its challenges: the greatest difficulty was obtaining a residence permit … People were being rejected in their hundreds.
A week or so later, armed with information and advice, I fronted up at the prefecture.
I came via Quai des États-Unis and Rue Saint-Françoisde-Paule, and found myself suddenly in the midst of a splendid garden of cut blooms.
It was the day of the flower market! Delighted, my gaze took in the whole display, then I stopped in front of the stalls to take a closer look. Carnations of every possible variety dominated at that time of year. In 1940, there was still fruit, which happily supplemented the scene. (Subsequently, oranges, lemons and mandarins were only to be seen on trees; once requisitioned, they would disappear from the market and from shop windows.)
Time was running. I hurried on to the prefecture. As I drew closer, I saw a long line of stationary people. It extended around the corner of the official building.
Policemen paced up and down.
I felt suddenly faint and hesitated a moment. But there was no putting it off!
I took my position in line.
It was two o’clock in the afternoon. At about five o’clock, I found myself at the counter. For the first time, it occurred to me to resort to my letter of recommendation from the office of the President of the Council of Ministers. I proffered my papers to the clerk. He glanced over them rapidly:
‘Office of the President of the Council! Prime Minister Daladier! None of that has any effect anymore!’
Refused.
But I seemed to have one definite stroke of good fortune amid my administrative difficulties. Twenty-four hours prior to my forced departure from Nice, the two local newspapers reported that hotels, suffering terribly due to the war, had protested against the deportation orders. The hotel industry, on the brink of collapse, was seeking residency permits on behalf of foreigners. It was agreeing to do its part to collaborate with suppliers to avert provisioning issues.
Thus, due to a combination of unforeseen circumstances, I was able to remain in Nice.
I liked my small hotel and I decided to stay put. A restful silence reigned all day long, complemented by the murmur of the sea.
But at mealtimes, the sound of raised voices rang out through the building. Monsieur Thérive, the hotel’s manager and head chef, a garrulous, self-confident man of insipid good looks, was fiendishly obsessed with politics. From hors-d’oeuvres through to coffee, he had the radio turned up so loudly that he was providing a news service to his neighbours, not to mention to passers-by.
And it was precisely the radio that supplied him with the topics for debate into which he hurled himself so wholeheartedly. As a general rule, discussion would take place between radio broadcasts, but when matters heated up, the announcer’s voice could no longer keep them quiet.
The hotel’s owner, Madame Marguerite, a small, retiring person, gentle-natured and utterly unpretentious, would then discreetly turn the knob down. Often those arguing would not even notice.
The chef was an avowed enemy of the Germans and an anti-Semite ‘on principle’.
Monsieur Martin, a demobilised naval officer and a very handsome man, would fly into a white rage every time a comment was made in favour of the British. He would often remove himself mid-meal so as not to have to listen to any such praise.
Monsieur Petitjean, a tall, sporty student who ran a youth camp in Nice, was a staunch collaborationist. He deferred, in all matters, to the Germans, ‘the most sensible people on Earth,’ he said. Revelling in the anti-Semitic diatribes, he would refer his dinner companions to Mein Kampf, a translated copy of which he owned and would happily lend.
Monsieur Huyard, a retired
colonel from the First World War, argued against these excessive notions, ‘which,’ he said, ‘would lead to the downfall of France, a balanced, moderate and tolerant country.’
As for the refugees, they did not participate in discussions. Offended by these indirect attacks, they would confer with each other about the possibility of a change of hotel and atmosphere; but politics was being discussed everywhere, and equally vehemently.
When they thought of the persecution rife in so many other countries, their own lives seemed almost enviable, and they would fall silent.
Pride was no longer appropriate. It was an inaccessible luxury, even for the French at that time.
Fortunately, after people had eaten, the hotel would fall back into its usual, soothing silence.
One day, Monsieur Thérive announced that his burden would be greatly alleviated should hotel residents wish to eat in town from now on. Difficulties with getting in supplies were growing insurmountable.
Henceforth, I ate lunch and dinner at various different restaurants.
I grew to know Nice’s old quarters, the picturesque language of its population, and the very particular cuisine of the Midi.
The Promenade des Anglais was depressingly banal, with its great buildings that looked like private hospitals butting up against exaggeratedly modernist rentals, its kiosks and its rustic buildings. The artificial atmosphere of most of the cafés and other public places was painful, almost palpably sad.
The rich went to inhale the ambiance of the casino, losing enormous sums without even being true gamblers. I recall one Viennese woman saying to her husband in a bewildered voice:
‘My poor darling, what came over you, when you’ve always had such a horror of gambling?’
‘I gamble so I can forget; I’m more horrified by my own thoughts than I am by the gambling.’
In order to kill time, some people went out on excursions and returned, exhausted.
In villas and in hotels, entire days were devoted to bridge, with people playing mindlessly late into the night.
Others preferred to stay at home or to go to a friend’s to talk politics. Pointless discussions, for nobody managed to resolve anything.
A large number of refugees were preparing to emigrate. They were relying on the odd relative, some more distant than others, on a friend or the friend of a friend, on acquaintances who had settled in far-off corners of the world, who they believed would help them implement their plans.
They engaged in painstaking correspondence, using veiled terms, sent costly telegrams, asked for affidavits, visas, received replies, queries back in response, questionnaires, circulars which would prompt a whole new wave of correspondence.
Then, they would spend entire mornings waiting at consulates only to discover this or that document was missing, did not comply with regulations or had turned out to be incorrect. When some did emerge with a visa, they were seen as phenomena, the blessed ones!
Departures were few.
Offices, agencies and emigration services provided information, took care of formalities and promised the earth. They took downpayments and deposits, paid eagerly by the refugees. But the promises never came to anything. The emigrant thought he’d been robbed; at least he had had a period of hope.
My affections and my ties held me in Europe and I made no attempt to emigrate.
Everybody had lost their drive, their enthusiasm for life … And so, from time to time, we would fall into gloomy indifference, an all-consuming inertia.
When I felt like seeing people, I had only to head to the Promenade des Anglais. I just had to take a seat somewhere around Boulevard Gambetta, the casino or the Jardin Albert-Premier in order to run into ‘acquaintances’, whose names one would often not even remember, or to meet new ones. These lost souls, far from family and friends, were keen to break the all-too-heavy silence, either to allay their constant preoccupation through the sharing of confidences, or to hear, by chatting, news of political events or the stories of other refugees. Anything was better than to languish in isolation.
One day, a seventy-two-year-old Polish woman told me the story of her flight, in the course of which she had lost her entire family. She had half lost her mind, too.
Similarly, I also met a Norwegian woman sitting on a bench, whose husband had escaped just as he had been about to be taken hostage. She had rejoined him in Sweden, then they had come … to Nice! Now they were considering heading for England, where he wanted to enlist. She was following him wherever he went.
A Dutch millionaire was waiting for help from friends in America: he had run out of funds.
An elderly couple, diamond merchants, one-hundred-and-fifty years old between them, had left Anvers with precious stones sewn into the lining of their clothes and were complaining to all and sundry about the great fortune they had lost. English people and Americans living in palaces continued to stroll the promenades and make daytrips until such time as their respective governments ordered them to be on the first boat out.
Individuals from every country, separated from their families and alone, would linger outside the casino, in front of shop windows, on streets and in squares, anywhere. They occupied benches and rented chairs, filling cafés and their terraces from morning to evening.
Jews from all the occupied countries wandered around, disoriented, purposeless and without hope, in an ever-increasing state of anxiety and agitation.
It was the lack of anything to do that weighed most heavily, draining every ounce of energy, any resistance.
One morning I sat down looking out to sea next to an unusually beautiful young lady with distinctly Slavic features. She was knitting. After a few minutes, she engaged me in conversation. Having cast a furtive glance around us, she turned to face me and confided, almost whispering in my ear, that she was knitting to bring in some money. She asked if I would recommend her services occasionally, begging me at the same time not to betray her confidence, as if her work constituted a crime! And it was, too. I was about to find out as much to my own detriment.
I had discovered an old book dealer on Rue Gioffredo. We chatted there, amid the second-hand volumes. The fellow was more interested in his business than in his profession. He spoke of remittances, profits, stationery, customers, the difficult times. I was examining his dusty volumes as I listened to him, and observed he had some rare titles. I told him I would like to catalogue his books. Seeing his hesitation, I added that, of course, I would do the work for free, out of my own love of books. He eagerly agreed. Armed with a letter he had drafted, I took myself off to the relevant department to procure the necessary documentation. A good-natured clerk sat smoking a pipe surrounded by piles of paperwork. I handed him the letter from the book dealer, along with my formal attestation as to my profession as a bookseller.
‘… rendered significant service to France … be granted every opportunity …’ he started to read under his breath.
Then, with an abrupt change of tone:
‘No work permits for foreigners! As for your reference … really! Office of the President of the Council of 1939! It does more harm than good!’
And he added in a disapproving tone:
‘All these foreigners! They eat our bread and then they want to work here, too.’
Having said that, he made a note of my name and address. That made me most uneasy. And for good reason! My actions prompted two successive visits from a policeman on a bicycle who wanted to satisfy himself that I was not working.
The residents in the hotel were most intrigued by these mysterious visits.
‘Is it a departure visa he’s bringing you?’ one of them asked, with some jealousy.
‘Is it a deportation order?’ enquired another, with some pity.
At the end of January 1941, Monsieur Thérive decided to close his establishment for good.
‘Only the pensions and luxury hotels owned by all those Jews can survive,’ he sighed.
‘What?’ exclaimed another in astonishment. ‘So, our
esteemed hospitality industry is being controlled by Jews?’
‘That’s not what I meant. That’s just what I call everybody who’s making do,’ replied Monsieur Thérive.
‘Come on, now, Monsieur Thérive, you’re not worthy of such a comment,’ protested the Colonel. ‘What an injustice to blame those worthy French citizens who are no different from you or me and, what’s more, you’re offending your Jewish lodgers who have sought refuge with us here in France.’
‘I’m not talking about them. They’re morally upright people,’ replied Monsieur Thérive, magnanimously.
He knew the refugees were drowning in ever-increasing worries and concerns, prompting him to grant them a certain latitude that did not, however, leave much room for sensitivities.
Being of mediocre intelligence, his commercial undertakings regularly resulted in failure, and this lack of success had spawned an envious spirit. ‘The Jews have always been lucky devils,’ Monsieur Thérive would say. And accordingly, he allowed himself to be completely swayed by racist theories.
German propaganda was well and truly rife throughout France at the time, and brought its full weight to bear on the press. Many French newspapers eloquently espoused Nazi theories. Some broadsheets, moreover, were so wholeheartedly devoted to such theories that it was impossible to doubt their sincerity.
To judge by the entire pages liberally illustrated with caricatures and exposing the Jewish ‘problem’, all of France’s woes, from her lack of preparation to her downfall, were attributable exclusively to Israel.
As for the radio, which was completely controlled by the Germans, it was not content with its daily broadcast of insults against present-day Jews, so also ran a series of populist lessons on the history of the Jewish people, which demonstrated their ignominy and misdemeanours dating back to well before our times.
Books, brochures, leaflets were freely distributed, posters of caricatures were displayed in shops, in the windows of newspaper editorial offices, on walls, along fences, on every street corner.
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